Photobooth

You can have your smelly goats and fried whatever on a stick — my favorite part of the Minnesota State Fair is the vintage photobooths. They’re so vintage they need a sign: This is actual film. Please be patient.

Last month marked our fourth yearly visit to the fair, and after we showed Dalia the state’s largest boar (she was so impressed she may have wet herself), we set off to take our annual photo.

We came prepared; we knew the photobooths were next door to the butterfly house… we just forgot where the butterfly house was.

As we snaked our way through fanny packed fairgoers and livestock turds, our conversation felt familiar.

“This looks right, doesn’t it?”

“I know where it is, just follow me.”

“I think we turn right up here.”

“I know where it is, just follow me.”

“Isn’t it near the cookies?”

“Can you please just FOLLOW ME?”

After 20 minutes of passing the same corndog stand, we realized that finding the photobooths–and arguing incessantly about their location–was as much a part of the tradition as the 30 seconds behind the curtain.

It’s always important to honor old traditions — I’m already excited for next year’s navigation-themed argument — but new state fair traditions may include: nursing while eating an ear of corn, napping while Y looks at the tractors, getting licked by an angry horse, and inhaling a milkshake while walking back to our car.